Sep 4, 2017

Hurricane Harvey has been the fiercest hurricane to strike Texas since Hurricane Carla in 1961—the most powerful Texas hurricane on record. What Harvey lacked in intensity, it more than made up for in rainfall. If you add up the highest rainfall for Hurricanes Katrina (16.33 inches); Andrew (13.9 inches); and Sandy (12.55 inches), they would not equal the over 50 inches of rainfall from Hurricane Harvey.

This storm has dropped more than 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas, triggering catastrophic, unprecedented flooding in the Houston area. The rains have broken numerous all-time records. There has simply never been a storm in U.S. history that has dropped so much rain over such a vast area of land.

The Weather Service office in Houston reported just over two feet of rain in 24 hours between 7 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday morning—making August the wettest month on record. Hurricane Harvey continued to be a named storm four days after making landfall. Prior to Harvey, there has never been a named storm that has managed to last even three days, according to Colorado State University tropical scientist Dr. Phil Klotzbach.

The record of records was the 51.88 inches measured at the Cedar Bayou weather station in southeast Houston. This is the highest storm total ever in the continental U.S. The previous record was 48 inches in 1978 by Cyclone Amelia, in Medina, Texas.

The eventual insured losses from this Category 4 hurricane will likely be well over $40 billion. Hurricane Ike in 2008 was only a Category 2 storm and resulted in $13 billion of insurance losses. Since only one in six residents have insurance, there’s 100 percent chance of Congress passing a huge government assistance package.

It is going to take a long time for aid agencies to help get eastern Texas back on its feet. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, predicted that the aftermath of the storm would require FEMA’s involvement for years. “This disaster’s going to be a landmark event,” Long said.

The climate change lobby is already claiming that Hurricane Harvey is the result of global warming. The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, had temperatures just under 90 °F. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been warmer than normal for the past year. For the first time in recorded history, the daily average surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico never fell below 73 °F during last winter.

The frequency of hurricanes has been down over the past several years. We just ended a record 13-year-drought for not seeing a category three hurricane strike the continental U.S. The vast majority the of destruction from Hurricane Harvey is the result of it being penned in by two high pressure areas. The rain kept coming down in the same location because the upper air steering currents were in neutral.

I read a 2008 article that predicted warmer Gulf of Mexico water would result in more tornadoes. Yet we’ve had three recent years with record low numbers of twisters.

The flood that hit Houston is being called a 500-year-event. The thinking is that if you live in a flood plain, there is a 0.2 percent chance each year that your property could be overrun by water. The entire concept of a 500-year-flood desperately needs to be reevaluated.

In 2015, Houston was hit on May 26 (Memorial Day) by heavy rains that flooded 6,500 homes. It was called a 500-year-flood. Again, in 2016, Houston was hit on April 18 (tax day) by massive rains that flooded 9,800 homes.

Houston isn’t the only city to get hit by “historic” floods with rapid frequency. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was hit with a 500-year flood in 2008, followed by a 100-year flood in 2016.

The people who manage flood planning may try to fix matters by calling Hurricane Harvey the 1000-year-flood. However, this flawed interpretation gives little comfort to people who have had to gut and rebuild their homes three years in a row.

The logical explanation for why Houston has had three so-called 500 year floods in a row may be the result of Bible prophecy. As we draw closer to the last days, calamities like Hurricane Harvey are going to occur with greater frequency.

Jesus said the arrival of the Tribulation hour can be likened to the contractions experienced by a woman about to give birth, as they increase with frequency and intensity. We can see these dynamics taking place worldwide affecting nearly every aspect of life. When Jesus foretold of these birth pangs He used the word “sorrows,” in His Olivet Discourse in reference to end-time things to come.

“And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” (Matthew 24:3-8)

–Todd

Prelude to Planetary Madness

News reports forewarn a nation descending toward chaos. Forces have obviously been set in motion that threaten to tear America apart. This instigation is purposeful, I have no doubt, and is spawned by Satan.

Saul Alinsky’s blueprint to bring about chaos so the one-world-order builders’ perfect, utopian plan can eventually rise from the ashes of this republic is well underway. George Soros and all the other globalists elite have little trouble finding minions of the human source to carry out the carnage. Lucifer’s demonic minions throw fuel of hatred on the fires of anarchy, and we see the incendiary results in our hourly headlines.

A 1979 Hollywood production, remade in 1980, 1985, and 2015, I believe, gives a fictionalized look at the real world to come when God the Holy Spirit removes from acting as restrainer on the already half-crazed minds of earth dwellers.

Mad Max is the disturbing foreshadowing of things to come when the Body of Christ—the Church—is removed in the Rapture.

Although made in Australia, the movie was Americanized in that the Aussie accents were dubbed over in the American-English accent in order to give the sense of the carnage taking place in the U.S. The storyline, set in the near future, portrayed a world gone mad with evil. The dystopian film presented in graphic terms people’s unrestrained actions against their fellow human beings.

Of course, the creators of the film had no idea that Bible prophecy presents just such a scenario—at least, I don’t think that entered their thinking.

We find the real story of things to come in this regard in the following Scripture.

And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now [restrains] will [restrain], until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 6–8)

When God the Holy Spirit withdraws from restraining wickedness perpetrated by fallen mankind, the world will become instantly worse than the fictional world of Mad Max. The present hostilities and chaos being churned by the would-be masters—both human and demonic—will swiftly result in destructiveness beyond description. We are indeed currently enduring a prelude to planetary madness.

But the Creator has not left us in a state of hopelessness despite the rioting and insanity going on in our nation and world. The Lord has provided a way to escape the carnage so vividly described in Revelation by John the apostle while exiled on Patmos two thousand years ago.

I wrote the following for our book, The Departure: God’s Next Catastrophic Intervention Into Earth’s History:

First, the Departure

Before God’s wrath falls, in the twinkling of an eye (an atomos of time), millions of Christians—those born again by believing in the shed blood of Christ on the cross two millennia ago for salvation—will vanish from the earth’s surface. The departure—the Rapture—will bring planet-rending disturbances to an already reeling world of nonbelievers.

God has been patient in allowing the world to see the Tribulation storm alerts. He has shown mercy and grace, as there is no prophecy given that must be fulfilled in order for the Rapture to happen. The departure can take place at any moment.

Getting out the warnings is the duty of spiritual meteorologists. This is a commission each author in The Departure: God’s Next Catastrophic Intervention into Earth’s History takes most seriously. We prayerfully hope many, upon reading the book, will take to heart the call of the only Lord and God of all Creation, who prompted the apostle Peter to write: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

This is the only way to be saved from the sin that separates the sinner from the Heavenly Father. This is the only way to be secure from the approaching Tribulation storm.

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10: 9–10)

We join with the prophet John, who wrote, “He which testifieth these things saith, ‘Surely I come quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).